Abstract

The article deals with the different kinds of speakers that emerge when language transmission failure arises between consecutive generations. The case is exemplified through the speech community of the city of Alacant, where we can distinguish four kinds of speakers, from the ones who know very well the local variety of Catalan to the ones who only understand this variety and whose first language is Spanish. In between we have the main concern of our study, the precarious speakers, distributed in two categories according to their skill in the use of Catalan, which has become their second language.

Abstract

An edition consisting of a commentary on two unpublished documents that Manuel Milà i Fontanals bequeathed to their disciple Menéndez Pelayo. With the help of various sources, Milà describes some of the characteristics of the various Catalan dialects spoken in Alicante in the last third of the 19th century. He draws the southern boundary with Castilian, and takes note of some aspects of their socio-linguistic vitatily. Baltrons corrects some of the data presented by the 19th century scholar, and sets both texts in the context of the process of linguistic susbstitution in practice at that time.